


monochrome

by dreamtowns



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Compliant, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Grief & Mourning, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort, canon minor character death, this is v rushed but I like it, this wasn’t supposed to be sad but oh well, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 06:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16012595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamtowns/pseuds/dreamtowns
Summary: For as long as Callum could remember, all he had was his mother. Then, in one heart-wrenching breath, she slipped away from his grasp. As if she were a mere wisp of wind, one minute she was there and the next, only smoke stood in her place.(or: what it means to grieve as the oldest prince.)





	monochrome

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own The Dragon Prince. All rights reserved to its developers: Wonderstorm + Netflix. All that is mine is the plot of this story in particular and any original characters introduced. No copyright infringement intended. No money is being made from this work. This is purely for entertainment purposes.
> 
> Enjoy :)

Callum is barely twelve when his heart is ripped out of his lungs.

They’re in the winter cabin, and Ezran’s curled around Bait on the couch. Their father, Harrow, sits in one of the armchairs near the fire, a book in his hands, failing to stay awake with his oldest child. The atmosphere is quiet, peaceful, but something unpleasant stirs underneath his skin at what’s missing.

His mother, Sarai, had gone to the border with supplies for the troops camped there. While she’d promised to return in by tomorrow evening, Callum couldn’t help but feel uneasy at her departure.

“Don’t look so anxious,” she had said, pulling him into a hug despite his squirms, and ruffled his hair. “I’m going to be just fine. I’ll be back before you even miss me.”

“Do you promise?” Callum demanded.

His mother smiled, bright and soft against the sunrise, and curled her pinky around his. “I promise.”

Something bitter sours Callum’s tongue at the memory.  

_She’s okay,_ he tells himself. _She’s probably on her way b—_

The front doors to the cabin burst open, and his father jumps to his feet, a hand pressed against his hip for the sword that isn’t there.

Callum’s heartbeat is deafening, he thinks all of Katolis can hear it when General Amaya stumbles inside with Gren, dirt and blood streaked across their faces. Horror and grief and emotions he can’t name cloud their expressions, and his aunt falls to her knees.

Callum thinks she’s crying.

“Your Majesty,” Gren translates from Amaya’s frantic signs, an emotion Callum doesn’t understand dripping from his tongue, but what Callum _does_ understand is sign language. He understands, but he doesn’t believe what he sees, what he hears, because it isn’t true. It can’t—

“The – Her Majesty,” spills out of Gren’s mouth, “Queen Sarai has, has fallen in battle. She’s…I’m so sorry, my King.”

The book falls from his father’s hands.

The floor swallows Callum whole.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Katolis mourns fallen kings for seven days.

Fallen queens are no different.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Callum drifts, more of a ghost than a human.

He walks in a castle devoid of warmth where every corner he turns reminds him of his mother, of her presence, of her laugh. He walks with a knot in his throat, with a metaphorical knife carving a hole in his lungs.

He doesn’t think he’s ever been so exhausted, and he knows that it’s partly due to Ezran waking him up with his tears, and Callum’s own nightmares over his mother’s death.

He thinks he should ease the concern wedged in everyone’s eyes as they stare at him, but the mere thought of pretending to be okay when he wasn’t makes Callum’s stomach churn uncomfortably.

His mother is dead, and gray swallows the world whole.

Callum thinks he might never be okay.

He tries to be upbeat for Ezran, because his little brother is barely seven years old, but his humor falls flat, and Ezran ends up comforting _him_ instead of it being the other way around.

The world moves on as if Queen Sarai had never been there in the first place, and Callum quietly seethes behind half-empty smiles. He wants to scream at the injustice of it, when he sees a pair of guards’ roughhousing with one another, their laughter floating in the courtyard; when he sees Ezran slowly, slowly return to his chipper behavior; when he sees that he’s surrounded by people who are laughing and smiling when he can barely breathe.

_How dare you,_ he wants to scream, _how dare you live while my mother is dead?_

But Callum swallows those words just like he’s swallowed his tears.

The world will always move on, he knows. There are more important things than the grieving prince a deceased queen has left in her wake.

He wants to wallow in peace, but Ezran’s chatter makes it difficult. “Hey, Cal, do you think—?”

“Just leave me alone, Ez,” Callum spits out. “I don’t care.”

“Fine,” Ezran scrunches up his face, but Callum sees the tears swimming in his eyes. “You don’t have to be such a Jerk face!”

A storm threatens to spill out of his skin as Callum nearly runs to the castle gardens, a place where he can be alone and unbothered, but Ezran’s tears echo after him like a haunting apparition, and guilt curls in the back of Callum’s throat.

God, he’s a horrible older brother. A horrible prince, a horrible son, a h—Soren grabs his elbow as he bypasses him in the hall, and Callum blinks weary eyes at him.

“Look,” Soren holds his elbow, mouth set in a line. “I know you’re hurting, Callum, but—.”

Everyone says that.

Their meaningless platitudes curl around him, day in and day out, from their lifeless mouths and blank eyes. They don’t mean those words, but what else were they to say to a prince who shouldn’t have been one?

“You don’t know how I feel,” Callum hisses, a rising storm in his throat, as he struggles out of Soren’s grasp. “Let me go!”

Soren ignores the command and, instead, pulls Callum into a hug. “It’s okay,” he murmurs against Callum’s hair. “You’re gonna get through this.”

Callum falters.

“I know I don’t have the brightest mind,” Soren starts quietly, “but I _do_ know how you’re feeling, C—.”

“How?” Callum interrupts, whispering. “ _How?”_

How could anyone possibly understand the way his heart spilled out of his mouth every time he breathed?

“My mom’s been gone for a while, too,” Soren tells him, and Callum breathes in a sharp breath at the knowledge. “Claudia’s too young to remember her, and, well, you too, but sometimes it feels like she…like it happened yesterday, you know?”

Callum tries to swallow. “Y-Yeah.”

“It’s gonna get better,” Soren says. “It’s not gonna, gonna be instant, like, say, tomorrow, but, one day, you’ll be okay. It’ll be easier to breathe, yeah?”

Callum wants to believe him, but the way his lungs constrict makes it difficult to imagine. A day where he can breathe properly, without the thought of his mother carving a gaping maw inside of him, is too distant for him to outline.

When Callum was seven, he fell and skinned his knees. His mother bandaged his wounds and wiped his tears with a bright smile. “See? That wasn’t so bad,” she said in a teasing lilt.

“You were so fast,” Callum marveled at his mother’s speed.

Her laughter echoed.

“Whenever you need me,” she told him, “I’ll be there. Promise.”

_When you need me the most, I’ll be there._

Callum wants to scream, but he’s terrified of attracting attention. The world stills in its’ quiet, but a grieving cacophony swirls inside of his Callum’s thoughts; a storm that presses against his mouth, yearning to imprint the earth.

_Where are you now?_ He wants to yell. _Why aren’t you here? I need you._

He buries his face in Soren’s shoulder to hide his tears.

Princes shouldn’t cry, after all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Three days after his mother’s funeral, Callum places his sketchbook, paints, and pencils and locks them away.

He doesn’t need them anymore, after all.

Gray colors the world.

 

 

* * *

 

 

A few weeks after his mothers’ funeral, Callum’s called to his step-father’s office.

King Harrow is an unfairly kind man. He’d been widowed with two children, one who wasn’t even his own blood, and yet he gives them his undivided attention whenever they need him. He makes sure they want for nothing, but they aren’t spoiled (well, Ezran is, but only when jelly tarts are a part of the equation).

As Callum enters the office, warm shadows cast over the walls from the lit fireplace. Harrow smiles at him from his place on the couch and pats the seat next to him; a silent invitation. Callum acquiesces, thinking he’s going to get in trouble for yelling at Ezran and making him cry (which Callum still feels guilty about, even if he’d given Ezran his dessert for three days straight), so he’s pleasantly surprised when his step-father pulls him into a hug.

Callum thinks he’s never been safer, held in his father’s arms.

(Callum thinks he might break if he loses him, too.)

“I know I haven’t been around as much,” his father begins, shushing Callum’s quiet noise of protest, “And for that, I have no excuse. I see how much you’re hurting, Callum, and for that, I apologize for not being here to ease it as much as I could.”

“Not your fault,” Callum croaks out; his tears make his tongue heavy like a boulder. _At least,_ Callum thinks, rage and grief burning in the back of his throat, _you’re here._

 They stay like that for a while, curled around each other, the fire their only source of light. Then, his father tilts his chin up to look at him, and his smile looks bittersweet as he says, “You have your mother’s eyes, you know?”

Callum’s heart rattles in his chest.

“You remind of her in many ways, not just in looks,” his father continues, his gaze drifting off into the fire. “Your love for art, and those wry jokes you make” —here, Callum snorts— “but your heart is what resembles your mother the most.”

Callum quirks an eyebrow. “What are you talking about? “

“Listen to an old mans’ words for a moment, Callum,” his father says, a firm, grounding hand clasped around Callum’s shoulder. “You are being very, very brave, you know? This moment in time…it is not easy.”

Callum doesn’t speak.

He can’t remember how.

“I know I will never replace Sarai or your birth father,” he continues in a low tone, wary of being overheard by others. “But I am here for you, Callum. I can’t promise you that I will _always_ be here, of course, but I will do my best.”

Callum blinks back tears. “O-Okay.”

His father smiles, soft and warm, just like his mothers’.

Callum attempts to return the gesture, but he knows it’s more of a grimace instead.

“Callum,” his father says. “Promise me something—don’t let anyone tell you how to grieve, do you understand? Not even me.”

“Okay,” Callum says, but he doesn’t really mean his words. “I promise.”

(Callum really, really hates promises.)

For as long as Callum could remember, all he had was his mother. Then, in one heart-wrenching breath, she slipped away from his grasp. As if she were a mere wisp of wind, one minute she was there and the next, only smoke stood in her place.

The things Callum loved always slipped away from his grasp, too quickly for him to bear.

He vaguely remembers his birth father. He remembers an outline of broad shoulders, and a single plait over a clothed shoulder. He remembers quiet laughter, a soft hum in the moonlight. He remembers the way the man would pull him into his arms and twirl him around the room for a dance. He remembers paint-stained fingers and the scent of ink on parchment.

His mother never told him how he died; only reinforced the knowledge that Callum had been so, so loved by the man.

“You were his world,” she had said, her eyes wet and pained, fingers carding through his hair. “You’re mine, too, never doubt that. You’re the most precious thing that I’ve ever had.”

Callum had fallen asleep against the soothing thump of her heartbeat.

He thinks he will miss that sound the most.

 

* * *

 

 

Callum, freshly twelve, aching in places he shouldn’t, memories of the dead a burning ghost at his feet, wishes people would stop making promises they couldn’t keep.

 

* * *

 

 

Callum corners Gren in the library, who brightens upon seeing him. “Callum,” the ‘guard smiles, unaware of Callum’s intentions, “I’m glad to see you up and about. How’re you feeling?”

Callum narrows his eyes at Gren, ignoring his question. “Can you tell me something?”

Gren tilts his head. “What’s up?”

“Was it quick?” spills out of his mouth before he can swallow the words. Gren makes a puzzled sound in the back of his throat, so Callum takes a deep, steadying breath. “My mom – was – was her death quick?”

Gren freezes, and Callum knows that what comes out of his mouth will be a lie. “She – it was, your Highness,” Gren tells him in an impossibly kind tone. “Quick and painless, I assure you.”

Callum swallows his tears.

His mother died in battle, is what Callum knows. He hadn’t been allowed to see her body, only her casket as King Harrow led the procession to the ceremonial alters and lit it on fire as per tradition of their funeral rites for deceased royal blood.

“Okay,” Callum whispers. “I…thank you.”

Gren’s smile is weak. “N-No problem, little prince.”

Callum stays in the library, secluded and surrounded by books of magic and history. For a crazed moment, he considers discovering a spell to revive his mother, but he revolts at the idea. Terrible things happen to those who disrupt the balance of life and death, and, although grief spills from the cracks in his skin, Callum isn’t that reckless or desperate.

“Hey, I haven’t seen you drawing in a while,” Gren says, attempting conversation, but Callum’s tongue is too heavy in his mouth.

He blinks at the table instead.

“Ah, um,” Gren continues, “Is, um, are you out of paper? I can, uh, go get you s—,”

“I’m not out of paper,” Callum interrupts quietly. “I just don’t feel like drawing anymore.”

Gren falters. “But, um, you love drawing?”

“So, did my mom,” Callum retorts, bitter grief a caustic tang in his mouth.

Gren falls silent, and Callum had nothing more to add.

How could he draw when he couldn’t even remember how the colors looked?

 

* * *

 

 

In the middle of the night, he listens to the sounds of Ezran’s snores.

Callum thinks his mother died crying.

 

* * *

 

 

Winter turns into spring, which transitions into summer, and summer bleeds into fall with crackling leaves and the scent of pumpkin and cinnamon. Almost a year since he’s seen his mother, Callum feels more like a corpse than a human being, an apparition tethered to the earth because of unfinished business. Ezran grows as the months pass, his grieving heart slowly healing as the days pass, but Callum is stuck in place; frozen and unyielding. The world continues to move, shifting away from their grieving footsteps, and Callum can’t help but resent the easy way they move as if they had not lost their queen.

As if someone had not lost their mother.

Oh, he hears their whispers and their murmurs when they think he isn’t paying attention. He sees their pity when they look at him or at Ezran.

_Orphan prince,_ they call him.

But Callum smiles through their meaningless condolences, and quietly wishes he could change places with his mother instead.

He begins training with Soren, but it’s easy to tell that he isn’t a natural. The only thing Callum is a natural in, he hasn’t touched since his mother’s last breath. He aches in places he shouldn’t, probably, but Soren refuses to handle him with baby gloves like most of the castle staff.

“That rage and that grief you’re bundling up,” he had said when Callum wiped out for the third time that session, “let it out. Turn those negative emotions into a brutal weapon.”

Just thinking about it makes Callum too tired to function.

He spends most of his days wrapped up in his blankets, probably more than what was healthy, as his mind drifts to his mother, and what was and could’ve been. Ezran drags him out of bed when he can, and corrales him into an “adventure”; which is just Callum blindly following Ezran throughout hidden chambers and passageways, listening to the others’ chatter and Bait’s accompanying croaks.

  _Don’t let anyone tell you how to grieve._

Callum’s very breath is grief itself.

On the eve of his thirteenth birthday, it isn’t easy, but strength slowly returns to his limbs. The memory of his mother no longer carves a hole inside of his chest, and there are days where he still struggles to breathe, but he’s no longer a mere ghost inside of human skin. His foray back into art is a slow process; painstakingly slow, but it’s progress. He’s hesitantly asked for some watercolors, as the ones’ he had before dried out, and is surprised when he sees people tripping over themselves to help him. When he questions Claudia about it, the girl laughs and pokes his nose.

“They just want to help you silly,” she tells him. “Your grief is their grief, you know?”

He hasn’t sketched his mother’s profile yet; her image is still too raw and biting for him to think about bringing to life on paper, so he starts on smaller objects that make him feel less like some glob of nothingness.

He’s sketching out a cute portrait of Bait and Ezran from a scene in the gardens when he’s interrupted by said brother.

“Callum,” Ezran mutters from his room, sniffling and water. “Callum, are you awake?”

When Callum crosses the threshold to Ezran’s room, he sees jelly tarts on the floor.

“Ez…” he starts. “What…”

He falters.

Callum looks down at Ezran, at the tears he sheds at the sight of the jelly tarts, their mother’s (and Ezran’s) favorite dessert, and swallows. He closes his eyes and breathes; feeling hollow, not quite there, and tries to pull himself together for his little brother.

Callum isn’t the only one who’s lost someone.

He kneels and gently wipes Ezran’s tears. “Hey,” he murmurs, a shaky smile on his lips, “Let’s make some more, yeah?”

Ezran blinks teary eyes at him and nods.

“While we make some more,” he says as they creep through the darkened halls, “I’ll tell you about Mom and Dad’s first date.”

Ezran visibly brightens at the offer.

Their father finds them in the kitchen, surrounded by flour and eggs and crushed persimmons, and laughs before he dons an apron himself and helps them finish the batch as they’re both still too young to figure out how to work the stove.

His heart still rattles when he breathes, but watching his brother and father joke and laugh, with Bait stealing dough here and there, he thinks it’s gonna be okay.

He is going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to yell at me (or request anything) on my [tdp tumblr](https://www.x-adia.tumblr.com/).


End file.
